


look how long this love can hold its breath

by herocomplex



Category: RWBY
Genre: 5+1 Things, Cannon compliant, F/F, Fluff, For the most part, Friends to Lovers, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No Plot Just Feelings, little bit of, very mild background whiterose, we're gonna hand wave some timeline stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27565264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herocomplex/pseuds/herocomplex
Summary: Kali nudges Ghira’s elbow, “Looks like you didn’t have anything to worry about with that boy after all.”Ghira is already looking at them when Kali says this. He’s still watching, the moment when they both pull back a little. Yang keeps one arm locked around the small of Blake’s back but her other hand comes up to brush at Blake’s tears. Yang’s eyes have gone soft as she looks down at Blake even as her own tears come thick and fast.Ghira can’t see his daughter’s face, but he can see Yang’s. He sees the way Yang looks at Blake, every emotion in her eyes fierce and raw and brown sugar sweet.“Well, thank the Gods for that.”[or five times people thought they were together before they actually got together and one time someone thought they weren't together when they were]
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 13
Kudos: 318





	look how long this love can hold its breath

-

1

-

It’s hard for Yang to believe that she’s only known Blake for a couple of months. It feels like it’s been longer, or like they have only just met again after a lifetime apart, new and familiar at the same time. But it also feels like it hasn’t been long enough. Like they have to make up for something lost, and there isn’t enough time left in the universe to do it. 

Yang doesn’t know where it comes from but Yang’s devotion to Blake comes easy, like a reflex, a bad habit, some primal instinct leftover from the dawn of man. She’ll do anything for Blake. She’d burn the whole world to the ground, she’d break any law, slay any dragon. Luckily, Blake never asks anything so ambitious of her; but she did go to six different stores once, to find Blake’s favorite tea when she ran out. It’s a power that one has ever really had over Yang before, she’s always been stubborn and contrary and temperamental and independent, but all of that falls apart at Blake’s feet. It scares her, Blake’s abrupt arrival and thorough rearrangement of all her priorities. She’s never wanted to let someone in before, she’s never wanted someone to know her like she wants Blake to know her. 

It makes Yang feel obvious. She’s sure that everyone can see it, that everyone knows what it means. But not even Yang really knows what it means, just knows that it's there, a compulsion that happens without her consent, like breathing. She’s terrified that Blake will notice, catch on, ask questions that Yang doesn’t know the answers to; terrified that Blake will decide she’s too much or not enough. Yang expects someone to call her on it. Especially Ruby, who knows that Yang has never been like this with anyone before. Luckily, Ruby is too focused on trying to win Weiss over to bother. And no one else mentions it, not really, not in the way that Yang is afraid they will. 

Sometimes, Yang will spend most of the day on her own, with class or training or her bike. She’ll spend that time coaching herself into believing that she can be cool, chill, casual, _normal_ about Blake. That she’s cured and every unprecedented thing Blake makes her feel is gone and done with. Yang will convince herself that she’s over it, that it was all just a weird, silly crush. Temporary and meaningless. 

Then Yang will see her again. Yang sees her again and everything Blake makes her feel will hit her all over again, like a sledgehammer to her kneecaps. Leave her blindsided and sucker punched. Like missing the last step on the staircase or falling in love while you have amnesia. Yang buckles under the pressure every time. Blake doesn’t even have to _do_ anything. Which might be the worst part. Blake will glance at her over the top of a book, or twirl a lock of hair around her finger while she does homework, or smile at her across the quad and that’s all it takes. Yang has swallowed a campfire, chased it with gasoline, and Blake is the only source of water for miles.

-

The point is, Yang will often find herself clumsy and desperate to give Blake absolutely everything she wants. Or things she doesn’t want but Yang decides she needs. So every time Blake mentions something she’s never done before, Yang makes it her sole mission to fix the discrepancy. It turns out that Blake led a fairly sheltered life before Beacon. If Blake only seems to mention these things when Yang is in the room? Well, no one tells her. 

All of this manifests, in Yang, waiting outside the lecture hall propped against her motorcycle in a leather jacket and a pair of aviators. She gets there just in time for the flood of students to pour out of the doors and across the sidewalks. The sound of idle chatter and scuffing of shoes on concrete fill the air. The wind is just cold enough to make Yang fuss with the zipper of her jacket as she watches the door. Yang finds Blake in the crowd. She’s laughing at something Velvet said and it makes Yang smile. She loves when Blake laughs, no matter what the cause. Velvet catches sight of Yang across the quad and nudges Blake, who snaps her attention to Yang. Yang waves. Blake says something to Velvet before pulling away from the river of human bodies and cutting directly across the lawn. Yang loves being the center of Blake’s attention, even if it doesn’t mean to her what it means to Yang. There’s something sharp and horrible about it, like touching an electric fence on a dare; it's bad for her but she can’t let it go. 

Blake tilts her chin to look up at Yang, playful and challenging. “Where are you taking me today?”

The aviators won't be able to hide anything about the smile Yang gives her, feather soft and helpless. “It’s a surprise.”

This scene plays out in front of all their peers, not once or twice, but routinely, weekly even.

The rumors probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. Rumors tend to build on each other. Big rumors are often made of thousands of smaller ones. Some of them are even true, even if the assumptions that follow are not. 

-

During midterms, for some reason, Professor Port likes to schedule night exams. Yang and Ren had stopped off at the dining hall after one in particular, to drown their stress in ice cream, so it’s genuinely late when they get back to the dorm. Yang winds up stuck in the threshold of the common room. Ren peeks past her shoulder and just throws her a smile as he heads up the stairs. Yang doesn’t move for a minute, stuck in the doorway, fingers curling around the wooden moulding. Blake is studying, or she _was_ , now she is slumped over the coffee table with her cheek pillowed on her arm and a textbook. Her neck is at an angle that gives Yang sympathy pain to look at. She's surrounded by a small moat of texts and loose-leaf notes spread out in a semi-circle of organized chaos. Despite the chaos and the uncomfortable position, her breathing is deep and even. 

There is no way Yang is going to leave her there.

Yang sidesteps the crumpled papers and teetering textbook towers to stoop over Blake. Yang gently tugs one of her folded arms to pull around her neck, her other hand going for the backs of Blake’s knees. Blake startles her body going rigid under Yang’s fingers, not fully awake but awake enough call out. “Yang?”

It’s not a soft, sleepy exclamation of recognition. It’s a shaky, frightened, call for help. Half asleep and scared of an unwelcome touch, Blake calls for Yang. It should feel good that Blake associates her with safety, but it just makes a knife twist hard in Yang’s gut. It’s not the first time Yang is forced to wonder what happened to Blake before she came to Beacon. Who does she fear even in her sleep?

“It’s me, Blake. Just me. I’m already here.” 

Blake relaxes. She gives into Yang’s guiding hands immediately, and butts her head underneath Yang’s chin with a sigh. Her eyes were already slipping back shut. “Okay.”

“Hey,” Yang says, gathering up in her arms, “I’m going to take you up to a real bed, okay?”

Blake makes a soft noncommittal hum, her fingers unfurling against Yang’s throat and collarbone, to grip at her shirt. Heat prickles the back of Yang’s neck. Yang carries her through the threshold toward the staircase, the dorm lounge quiet except the metronome of the grandfather clock. But Blake doesn’t stop humming. In fact, the humming gets deeper and steadier like the sound of a machine and it doesn’t stop, just hitches over and restarts. Kind of like-

Yang freezes in the stairwell. Looks down at Blake like she’s trying to see her again for the first time. Humans don’t purr. Yang glances at her bow with a tight suffocating feeling in her chest. The lie itself doesn’t hurt. The fact that Blake had been scared enough to feel she had to lie, does. 

Yang continues up the stairs. She can only hope that, eventually, Blake will feel safe enough to tell them. 

[This will come up later. She will spend so much time trying to buffer Weiss’s reaction when the truth comes out, she’ll forget to act surprised. Weiss will point this out and Yang will be forced to stutter out the truth. Blake won’t be mad but she will ask, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Yang will shrug and say, “It wasn’t my secret to tell. Besides, you’re Blake. Faunus, White Fang. You’re still Blake.”

_How could I ever like anything less than all of you?_ Is what she means. Is what she doesn’t say.]

Yang is looking down at Blake as she climbs the stairs so she doesn’t notice anything until the camera flash goes off. She jerks her head up to see Velvet with her ever present camera in her hands, looking a little sheepish. 

“Sorry,” she whispers, “You two just look so cute.”

Coco rounds the stairwell behind Velvet, hands in her pockets, she looks over Velvet’s shoulder at the photo. Coco fixes Yang with a smug look over the top of her sunglasses and drawls, “Aw, who knew you were such bleeding heart Xiao Long.”

Yang just glares at them as she edges past. It’s already a miracle that Blake hasn’t woken up and she doesn’t want to push her luck. 

Yang didn’t think much of it, she knew Velvet wouldn’t spread it around. An accurate assumption, since Coco is the one who shows everyone she meets. 

-

The final nail in the coffin ends up being Cardin Winchester. It turns out, if the most oblivious, tactless, and boorish person in school is convinced you’re dating? Well, then you must be. 

It is late afternoon and the weather has shifted into winter. So much so that the slate grey sky outside the library’s vaulted windows looks tempted to snow. The library is crowded now that it’s too cold to lounge around and study outside on the lawn. It is quiet with the hushed sound of low conversation and turning pages, cozy, and the exact reason Blake loves the library.

Or it would have been, if Cardin wasn’t looming over her. He’s acting both entitled to her attention and bitter about her disinterest. Blake knows that this is some form of revenge from when she rejected his clumsy attempt to ask her out the other day. Blake is exhausted and slightly over-caffeinated and just trying to read. The only reason she hasn’t already punched him in the throat is because she doesn’t want to get banned from her favorite place on campus. 

He slams his palm down on the table and crowds her against her hard-backed chair. It’s about a half a mile closer than she ever wants him to be. Blake is getting tired of his attempts at intimidation. She’s about to give in and cause a scene just so she can be left alone. The humidity of his breath makes her nose wrinkle and she opens her mouth to say something scathing when- 

_CRACK!_

A textbook the size of a cinderblock smashes broadside into Cardin’s head. He stumbles directly into a nearby bookshelf. 

“Hey, Cardin!” Blake turns her gaze to the source of the voice. The soft white noise of the library has gone eerily silent and everyone in the room is staring at the source of the commotion. 

Yang is standing on a table, eyes blazing red, fury crackling around her like a storm. Blake’s not sure she’s actually seen her this angry before. 

“If you mess with my partner, I’ll bash your _fucking_ teeth in.” 

Yang’s voice is pitched low and dangerous in a way that promises follow through. She’s also loud enough that Cardin is definitely not the only person getting the picture. Behind Yang, the librarian at the circulation desk has his head in his hands. She steps off the table and stalks a straight line through the maze of tables and keeps moving directly into Cardin’s space. Yang pins him to the wall without touching him. 

“Got it?” She demands. There is a tense moment before Cardin realizes she’s seriously willing to maim him in front of a dozen witnesses. But he gives in, nods over enthusiastically, until Yang moves slowly to let him leave. Which he does, in a bit of a scramble. Yang is apparently impervious to the silent collective staring she’s started. Blake is not. She can already feel her neck heating up with the weight of everyone’s attention. With the show over, people slowly edge back toward normalcy. 

Yang props her hip against Blake’s table, casual, “Hey Blake, you cool?”

“ _How_ are you not banned from the library, again?”

“Oh, he tries like once a week,” Yang says, jerking her thumb towards the librarian, “But Ozpin won’t let him cause I ‘need access to books for my education’ or whatever.”

-

Needless to say, after this incident Cardin steers clear of both of them and tells everyone who might be considering it, “Hey, uh, don’t mess with Xiao Long’s girlfriend.” 

Yang will blame this on many things. The ambiguity of the word partner, or Cardin’s general personality, or the other completely false rumors that came before this one, for instance. Either way, the entire school thinks they’re dating. Yang will blame many things other than herself for this particular mix up. She will still apologize to Blake for it, even if some small, rotten, part of her enjoys it. 

When she does, Blake stares at her with an unreadable expression, “I don’t mind,” then almost apprehensive, “I guess it makes it kind of hard for you to get a date, though.”

Yang thinks of brushing her teeth next to Blake in the mornings, of watching her eat funnel cake for the first time, of asking her to read aloud when no one is around, of knowing her ridiculously complex sushi order by heart, “I don’t want one.” 

She thinks of waiting outside the lecture hall with her motorcycle, of all the things they haven’t done yet and smiles down at Blake, eyes all crinkles at the edges, “Besides, when would I have the time?”

-

2

-

The first time Yang wakes up in the hospital is a bit of a mess. 

She wakes up and she doesn’t know where she is but she knows where she needs to be. And it isn’t here. Everything is hazy, like she’s trapped underwater, and her pulse is thundering in her head. Somewhere, an alarm is beeping. 

“Blake!” She tries to yell but her voice doesn’t work right, so she tries again with better results, “ _Blake!”_

_She has to go. She needs to find her. He’s gonna kill her. He’s already killing her._

She doesn’t know where she is but she’s lying down when she should really be standing up, so she moves. She swings her legs over the side of something, a bed maybe. She feels unbalanced, uncoordinated, a little dizzy. She’s in a white room, there’s someone in a chair nearby, but she doesn’t quite recognize them. She’s trying to stand up but there's a bunch of wires or string pulling on her left arm so she yanks it free. Three more alarms start going off and they’re all different and overlapping and it’s giving her a headache. People are yelling. None of them are Blake. 

She can’t think right. That guy, that asshole, stabbed Blake. She was going to put a stop to it. Needed to put a stop to it. She’s worried she didn’t put a stop to it. 

The yelling people want her to get back in the bed. The man in the chair has his hands on her shoulders and oh that’s- “Dad?”

She’s being pushed back, in the opposite direction she needs to go in. She fights. She grits her teeth and tries to push through the brain fog and the grabbing hands. Ultimately, she loses. Her back hits a soft mattress and a bunch of unrecognizable people and her dad are looming over her. She tries to reach for her dad, to tell him, make him understand, _someone has to find Blake._ She tries to speak again but it comes out so garbled she’s not even sure what she’s saying. Before she can try again, there’s a pinch in her neck and everything goes from hazy, to murky, to dark. 

-

The second time she wakes up is only marginally better. Blake’s name is still stuck on her tongue. Is still the first thing past her teeth before she even opens her eyes. But the adrenaline is gone and the drugs have worn off just enough that she can think clearly. She recognizes Tai. More importantly, she recognizes Sun. Sun will know.

“Blake,” she rasps, “What happened to Blake?”

She tries to reach out toward Sun but her right arm doesn’t work right. Maybe it's the drugs or just her priorities but when she gives it a weary glance and registers it’s absence she skims over it. Deems it less important for the moment. 

“Sun, where is Blake?” It's a demand, and Sun’s anxious lack of answer is making Yang start to panic. 

“She’s gone,” Sun admits, glancing at Tai.

Yang’s entire world collapses inward like a dying star. She’s white-knuckling the bed sheets. Everything has been cut loose from gravity and it gives her vertigo. Her vision starts to tunnel and she realizes she’s not able to breathe. 

“She left,” Sun adds, “As soon as they stitched her up.”

“She’s alive?” Yang clarifies, she feels half strangled as she tries to talk. It feels like being resuscitated after drowning. 

“Yeah,” Sun says slowly, watching her, “She’s alive.”

“She’s alive.” Yang repeats it to herself, a holy affirmation. The world rights itself. Somebody has turned the gravity back on. She tilts her forehead into her own palm, “She’s alive.”

“She seemed… scared. Like really scared,” Sun adds, “I have no idea where she went. But it didn’t seem like she was coming back.”

Yang wants to get up. To give chase. To follow. But mostly she wants Blake. She wants Blake to have stayed. She wants Blake to have _wanted_ to stay. Yang had hoped that she was more important to Blake than fear. But it wouldn’t be the first time Yang’s gotten that wrong, how important she is to other people. 

_It’s better than dead._

_It’s better than dead,_ she thinks looking at her arm. 

_It’s better than dead,_ she thinks missing Blake. 

-

Tai isn’t a fool. He watches his daughter wake up in the hospital both times. He’s heard her yelling in her sleep, every night, since she came home. The way it seems two ghosts haunt the house. He notices that she suddenly drinks tea, and makes him get it from the specialty shop that imports it from Menagerie. He knows, vaguely, who Blake is because Ruby had called and told him about her team. Yang had never called. So, what he didn't know is how important Blake was to Yang. But now he thinks he’s starting to understand. 

When Yang snaps at him and yells, “ _I’ve lost a part of me and it's never coming back_.” 

He doesn’t think she’s talking about her arm. 

-

The credits roll on a movie. Tai managed to convince Yang to watch it with him. She looks small and tired, squished into the corner of their big leather couch. Her head is tipped back against the cushion and the dim blue-tinted light of the screen paints her haggard and glassy eyed. Tai knows Yang has had a question simmering in her for days. Tai is a patient man. He thinks she might be ready to ask it.

“I know-I know we don’t talk about her,” Yang starts. She doesn’t look at him. “But. How did you-When Raven left, how did you get over it?”

It’s not the question he was expecting but then again maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. Yang, however young she was, was there to witness him losing Summer and his poor management of it. Yang doesn’t elaborate. She just stubbornly sets her jaw. Like she expects a fight. 

“Well I- I had Summer. And Summer had lost her too.” It’s not the first time Yang wonders what exactly the dynamic was on team STRQ, what her family would have actually looked like if it hadn’t all fallen apart. “It helped knowing she was alive at least. That she left but she was out there and she might-” he exhales a breath like it's been punched out of him . 

“Come back?” Yang offers. 

“Yeah,” Tai is staring through the wall at a memory before pulling himself back, “And Qrow stayed. Which was good because he was the only one who could get you to sleep.”

Tai tries for a chuckle but it comes out heavy and sad instead of amused. “And all three of us had you.”

Yang wants to scream. Wants to yell at her father, ‘Why wasn’t I enough when you lost Summer? Why wasn’t Ruby?’ because Tai had left too, in every way possible except physically. But Yang bites it back, swallows it like broken glass. 

“But, to answer your question, I guess maybe I didn’t. I just got used to it. And having family around…,” Tai smiles and shoves her knee, “Can really help.”

Yang knows he’s trying to refer to himself, here now. But they haven’t been close in years. Even when Tai finally crawled out of the pit Summer’s loss threw him into, Yang had been wary and distrustful of his ability to take care of Ruby; had already determined that _she_ certainly didn’t need him. Ruby’s unbridled enthusiasm had tempered Yang’s distrust and distance over the years, but now, in the house without her, silence tended to stretch between them. 

It doesn’t matter anyway. There’s no one alive or dead who could fill the hollow that Blake left behind except Blake herself. She hates comparing it to losing a limb but if anyone would know the feeling, it's her. Or maybe it's worse than losing a limb. She can figure out how to become left handed, can relearn every basic task, she might even be able to figure out how to fight again but she doesn’t think time will fill the hole Blake left. She won’t get used to this. She wishes—helplessly, hopelessly—for Blake to be the one who comes back. 

“It’s not about the arm,” she admits finally, even though Tai already knows. It’s grown dark in the living room and neither one of them has moved to turn on a light. She still doesn’t look at him. “I’d lose it again. I’d lose it a hundred times.”

Yang’s crying. Staring at the ceiling and crying. It’s the quiet kind of crying. The sort of crying born from acceptance and the pain that follows. 

Her voice only shakes a little when she says, “Does she know that? I just… really need her to know that.”

Tai has let love ruin him so many times and yet he still doesn’t have any good advice, can’t think of the right words to say. He thinks maybe there aren’t any. He thinks maybe love ruins everyone differently. 

-

Halfway around the world, in Menagerie, everyone keeps assuming that Blake and Sun are together. Each and every time someone makes an assumption about her and Sun, Blake is quick to correct them. It’s a knee jerk reaction to deny it swiftly and firmly. [She never once corrected anyone who assumed she was dating Yang in their two years at Beacon.]

Because it feels _wrong_ . Because the idea of pretending to date Sun wrenches her gut and turns her stomach _with guilt_. And she knows exactly why, even if it doesn’t make any sense. 

[How can you cheat on someone you were never with? How can you feel as though you belong to someone you left?]

-

3

-

Yang will admit she’s angry. If anyone asks she’ll say she’s angry that Blake left, of course. Since she did, without a note or a goodbye. But the truth is, she’s angry because it's easier than grief. It hurts less. So, she holds onto the anger, digs her fingers in, until she can’t tell how much of it is directed at Blake and how much is directed at herself. Until she can’t tell how much is real and how much is a lie made up to protect herself. 

Yang’s heart has turned into a messy, visceral thing, the highway smear left after roadkill. Then Blake steps into the room. Yang isn’t expecting it at all, nevermind here, nevermind now. Blake steps into the room in the middle of their fight with Salem’s cronies and suddenly Yang doesn’t know how she feels. Because Blake is here, and looking at her like she’s the only person in the room, like she’s the only person in the universe. When Blake looks at her like that and says her name, Yang doesn’t know what she feels but it isn’t anger. All that festering anger washes out of her, turns back into pain, turns back into the truth. Some of it turns into relief and some of it turns, dangerously, into hope, and some of it disappears altogether. It’s not quite forgiveness. Nothing is really fixed. It's just that, when she scrapes back all the layers, when she washes off all the blood, there’s still love underneath. 

Yang takes half a step toward her, ready to throw this fight—throw the whole world under the bus—just to eliminate the distance between them. It’s almost comical how Blake can do this to her even now. How Blake doesn’t even have to _do_ anything but walk in the room to bring Yang to her knees. Except this time Blake looks equally devastated, equally desperate, in a way that’s so obvious even Yang can see it.

Ruby’s voice cuts through and reminds Yang that they’re kind of in the middle of something. And it’s kind of important. So Yang goes after her mother. Her mother, who hadn’t bothered to look half so desperate to see her after nearly twenty years, as Blake did after six months. 

-

After, when Blake is standing there asking for permission, looking at Yang even when Ruby has already given it easily, Yang will think _you’re not her_ . Yang will beckon her closer and welcome her back. Because Blake _isn’t_ Raven. Because Yang would rather take the risk of her walking away again than lose her for certain right now. Because Yang was always going to let her back in. Because, when given a choice, Yang will always choose Blake. It’s an easy choice to make. 

[Later, when they’ve talked about it, Yang will find out that Blake had moments too. Moments when she was hit with the simple, obvious thought: _you’re not him_. Yang will laugh, bitterly, from where she’s laying, shoulders pressed into the cushions of the couch and say, “Our demons sure do know how to play well together.”

Blake will watch her from the other end of the couch, “It won’t matter if we’re facing them together.”

“Who knew you were one for all these big, dramatic storybook lines.”]

Blake is staying. But she also has to leave again. 

“I’ll meet you wherever you’re staying,” she promises, “I kind of brought half of Menagerie here and I should probably…”

“Figure out what to do with them?” Yang finishes, she can feel how guarded her own smile is. 

Blake ducks her head, a little guilty, and says “Yeah.”

“Let us know if you need anything,” Ruby says earnestly, “Uncle Qrow might be able to help.”

“Kid,” Qrow says, holding a very unconscious Oscar, “Don’t sign me up for more shit.”

Blake stands, her ears pinned back in a clear sign of distress, “I’ll come find you,” she says, and somehow Yang knows Blake is saying it to her and not the team. 

-

It takes hours but Blake does find the house that her team is staying in. Her parents are with her to try and get more information from Qrow about what Adam had the White Fang involved in. Blake is suspicious of their ulterior motives.

When they step into the living room everything is a familiar sort of chaos. Nora is on the floor covered in a blanket of ice packs, Jaune is trying to force Ren to eat something before he takes a painkiller, Ruby and Weiss are arguing over something inconsequential in the kitchen, and Qrow is having a very quiet existential crisis on the end of the couch by Oscar’s feet. All in all it's pretty normal for her team, her friends, and Blake almost wants to cry. 

Blake introduces her parents to Qrow and they start to talk. Blake’s only half listening, so when Yang steps into the room she immediately has Blake’s full attention. Yang would have had her full attention anyway. She always does. 

Yang is in sweatpants and a soft knit sweater, her hair still damp from a shower, she’s holding an ice pack against her ribs and wincing slightly. Yang finds her eyes across the room and Blake feels cut straight down to the bone. Her heart pounds, big and sloppy in her chest. 

“Yang,” Blake says but it sounds like _please_. Yang’s expression changes, morphs into something determined and unreadable. She moves across the room toward Blake with quick, sure steps. Blake seizes in fear, curls inward, bracing for the worst. But Blake doesn’t run. She’s done running from Yang. After seeing her again, Blake’s not sure how she managed the first time. 

“Yang, I-I know you’re angry,” Yang’s ice pack hits the hardwood as she gets closer, Blake flinches at the sound. “And you should be, but I’m so-.”

She flinches again as one of Yang’s hands lands warm and soft on the side of her neck, gentle as sunlight. Yang’s other palm fits against her back, tugging Blake closer, hesitant enough to be a question rather than a demand. It’s been a long time since Blake could reliably expect gentleness in the face of anger and she’s not sure anyone is gentle with her the way Yang is. 

“We’ll talk about it later,” Yang promises, still tugging lightly, letting Blake know she can refuse, “But right now I just-”

And Blake surges up onto her toes, throwing her arms around Yang’s shoulders to push her face into the juncture of her neck. Yang’s arms come around her just as quick, hands fisting in the back of her jacket and pressing her as close as their bodies will allow, and still wanting to be closer. Yang inhales sharply, like maybe she hasn’t in a while, like maybe she forgot how to. Yang is as warm as she remembers, like holding a campfire. Blake’s crying before she even realizes it, clinging to Yang more than she has a right to, but Yang just hums and presses her cheek against Blakes temple. She is so familiar and safe that Blake can feel all the tension that’s been coiling in her body since she left, finally starting to unravel. Blake is so full of hope she’s drowning in it. She’s never wanted anything as much as she wants Yang to forgive her and she knows she’s never deserved anything less. 

Some part of Blake knows that this is a lot for a living room full of people, especially when two of those people are her parents. But the rest of her doesn’t care. 

“I missed you,” Blake half sobs, “I missed you so much.”

Yang clutches her impossibly tighter, like she’s afraid this will all be a dream if she lets go, and she leans more heavily into Blake. Blake takes her weight greedily and holds them both up. 

It takes a minute for Blake to realize that Yang is crying too. 

-

Kali nudges Ghira’s elbow, “Looks like you didn’t have anything to worry about with that boy after all.”

Ghira is already looking at them when Kali says this. He’s still watching, the moment when they both pull back a little. Yang keeps one arm locked around the small of Blake’s back but her other hand comes up to brush at Blake’s tears. Yang’s eyes have gone soft as she looks down at Blake even as her own tears come thick and fast. 

“You’re so embarrassing,” Yang says, voice wet and raspy, trying for a grin, “Crying over me like this in the living room.”

Ghira can’t see his daughter’s face, but her hands come up to cradle Yang’s face and brush her tears away with her thumbs. 

“You’re one to talk,” Blake counters, voice equally weak and watery. 

Ghira can’t see his daughter’s face, but he can see Yang’s. He sees the way Yang looks at Blake, every emotion in her eyes fierce, raw, and brown sugar sweet.

“Well, thank the Gods for that.”

-

4

-

That first night in Atlas it made sense. It was basically the longest day of their lives. They stole an airship, killed a man, fought a horde of Grimm, got arrested, lied to a major government official, and essentially got promoted. All in less than twenty four hours. They were all exhausted. 

The dorms are grand and clinical in the way everything in Atlas seems to be, but there are bunk beds and an on-suite bathroom with nearly unlimited hot water, so it’s basically heaven. Yang knows she won’t be able to sleep, not quickly, not easily. So, she lets everyone else shower first. She expects everyone to be asleep when she finally gets out of the bathroom. For the most part they are, everyone except Blake. Blake is curled up on only half her bunk, visibility fighting sleep. 

“Yang?” Blake’s voice is night-soft and fragile; a question, a plea. Blake’s fingers stretch across the empty space she left in the bed. Yang doesn’t even look at the ladder for the top bunk. She just looks at Blake.

“Oh, thank the Gods,” Yang sighs and crawls into Blake’s bed. 

Yang nudges Blake, not shy about exactly how close she wants them to be, and Blake moves, willingly like this isn’t the first time they’ve done this, like she knows exactly where to go. The heat of a second person is blessedly warm compared to the Atlas chill which creeps past the cement fortress and into the room. Blake’s palm skates across Yang's belly to tuck up against her ribs, fingers tangled in the baggy Academy shirts they were given. Yang moves under her, so Blake can pillow her head against Yang’s arm and shoulder. Yang’s fingers trace down Blake’s spine gentle but sure, like she’s counting vertebrae, like she’s reminding both of them that this is real. Yang’s warmth, her shower clean smell, the fact of her pulse beneath Blake’s ear, is a balm for an ache Blake thinks she was born with. Blake lets herself relax for the first time in what feels like years, releases a sigh of relief that Yang can feel against her skin, against her bones. Yang thinks she should feel nervous or giddy laying next to Blake like this but she doesn’t, she feels better than those things, she feels honey warm, thick, heavy limbed contentment. It feels like-

“Do you,” Blake starts, quiet, but sharp in the dark room. “Uh, do you ever think of people as words?”

Yang huffs a gentle laugh. Yang presses her face into Blake’s hair. It’s been the longest day of her life, she should want to sleep but even now, she’d rather listen to Blake. 

“No.” Each word is laced with affection, “But you would, you nerd.”

“You’re strength,” Blake says, without preamble. Her eyes are closed but she’s definitely not asleep yet. Yang’s fingers pause in their journey up and down her spine, then start up again. “You still are. But now I think you might be another word too.”

“Oh?” Yang prompts gently, the arm around Blake squeezes her a little closer. Yang’s chest and throat have gone tight with memories of struggling to get out of bed, of her own trembling hands, of her last conversation with her mother. How Blake only knew parts of all that but still managed to say exactly what she needed to hear. 

“I think-,” Blake starts, her words sleep slurred and sincere, “I think you’re also home.”

The body under Blake sucks in a hard breath and releases it, slow. She doesn’t know if it's a good sign or a bad one. Then, metal fingers curl against her elbow, flesh fingers cradle the small of her back, the ghost of a kiss against the top of her head, and Blake feels herself relax the rest of the way into the mattress, the rest of the way into Yang. A hum rumbles through the chest beneath her ear. Whatever Yang says after that Blake is too asleep to hear. 

-

The point is, the first night in Atlas it made sense. But it's been days now, nearly a week, and Yang has yet to make it up to the top bunk. They have extra blankets, and two pillows, and designated sides of the bed, instead. They haven’t talked about it and maybe they need to. Or maybe they don’t. There aren’t really questions they need to answer. They both know where they’re going and because of that they can take their time. 

Yang wakes up first. She usually does. Her and Weiss have always been the designated early risers. Light bleeds past the drapes and across the floor to fill the room with a facsimile of warmth and flipping some internal alarm in her head, leaving her to blink away sleep. The first thing she becomes aware of, the first thing she always becomes aware of, is the familiar, tangible weight of Blake in the bed. 

The nice part about waking up first is that Yang gets to look at her. Blake has turned over during the night and faces the wall, the curve of her spine pressed snug and warm into Yang’s side, her head pillowed on Yang’s arm. Yang takes in the way stray sunlight from the window paints auburn highlights in her hair, the steady rise and fall of her breathing, the way she’s somehow collected three quarters of the blankets in the night and _oh_ -

Yang _loves her._

It’s not a revelation, not really. The way her heart feels like a tender purple bruise in her chest, her lungs too tight, her ribcage cracked in half. It’s not a revelation. It’s the arrival at a destination she bought a ticket for. 

Weiss is also awake and already fully dressed. She pauses by the door on her way out to make a face at Yang which Yang counters with an expertly raised eyebrow, because she knows for a fact that Ruby’s ridiculous sleep talking isn’t coming from her own bed. Weiss rolls her eyes even as she turns pink, and makes her exit. 

Yang always stays for a bit. Always lingers in the pool of safety and peace that Blake turns the bed into. Yang didn’t even know how to want this before she got it. So she stays, savors it. Well, she stays until she’s too hungry to ignore the thought of breakfast anymore. Yang gently starts to extricate herself from underneath Blake, tries to wriggle free without waking her. It doesn’t work. It never works. Blake makes a soft sleep noise in response and rolls over to hook her fingers in Yang’s shirt in wordless protest. 

“Your space heater is going to find breakfast,” Yang says, voice sleep thick and low, tucking the extra blanket up around Blake. Blake gives a sleepy eyed pout, her grip on Yang’s shirt tightening into a tug. 

“No.” Blake says, petulant as a child. Yang can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her. 

“I’ll get them to make you french toast,” Yang bribes, gently untangling Blake’s fingers and brushing her thumb over her knuckles. Yang resists the urge to kiss her hand before she gives it back.

“Okay,” Blake acquiesces easily. 

Unlike Weiss, Yang doesn’t bother dressing up, just pulls a sweatshirt over her head and steps into her boots without bothering to tie them. And if Blake curls up in Yang’s empty spot on the bed, well, Yang isn’t about to mention it. 

-

Surprisingly, Marrow and Harriet are sitting at their usual table along with Jaune and Weiss. Yang has nothing against the Ace Ops, really, but she doesn’t exactly like them either. Or maybe she just doesn’t know how to talk to them. They are carefully withdrawn and detached, even with each other. It’s a dynamic Yang can’t understand. The dining hall, like everything at the Academy, is huge and impersonal. The ceiling is high vaulted, the tables are cold and sterile metal, the kitchen is separated by a half wall and filled with personal chefs, and the coffee bar is militantly organized. It is all very purposefully neutral. 

She slides onto the bench next to Weiss. Weiss wordlessly slides a mug of coffee in front of her. Even the mugs here are terribly generic; white and logo-less. 

“Ironwood’s got you all bunking together in the dorms, huh? That sucks.”

Weiss and Yang share a glance. “It’s actually nice, living all together again,” Weiss says with an overly polite edge to her voice.

“You guys might keep your team strictly business. But we don’t.” Yang taps her mechanical fingers against her mug and lifts her chin in Harriet’s direction. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Harriet counters. It sounds vaguely condescending which makes Yang’s teeth grind. Especially when she thinks of everything she’s done to get here and how she would do it all again. How she would do it again every time, if it meant Blake got to wake up to warm blankets and French toast, already made. Would she fight half as hard for something else? For anything else?

Yang leans on the table with her forearms, meeting Harriet’s arrogant stare with her own. Marrow is watching them with interest. Jaune seems to be frantically searching for a change of topic while attempting to avoid choking on his cereal. Yang can feel Weiss’s nervous energy to her right, and tries to suppress her urge to make a scene for her sake. 

“It’s never been a problem for _us_ ,” Yang settles on, leaning back, reigning herself in. Silence settles on the table and it stretches toward uncomfortable. Yang pretends not to notice, stirring her coffee so the spoon clinks against the mug. She thinks of waterfalls and Blake’s hand on her trembling fingers and _I’m not dying now._

“I think it’s better,” she adds, without looking up, “Having someone to live for.”

Harriet scoffs derisively, “You would think that.”

Yang grips her mug hard enough for the ceramic to protest against metal. But, when Yang doesn’t rise to the bait, some of the tension dissipates. Jaune purposefully asks Harriet a question about training and the conversation topic is successfully switched. When Yang looks up, Marrow is still watching her, head tipped to the side as though puzzling out an equation. Yang counters his stare with a carefully raised eyebrow and a sip of her coffee. Yang hasn’t even _mentioned_ Blake. Hasn’t even said anything more on the subject, but Marrow’s expression still blooms with realization, his tail still starts to wag. 

“ _Oh_ ,” Marrow says, “You and-”

Yang is blessedly saved from the rest of this interaction by her sister, barreling into the mess hall, and latching onto Weiss’s back. Weiss turns bright, bright red at Ruby’s open physical affection. It’s an easy, welcome redirection of everyone’s attention. 

“Weeeiiis,” Ruby whines, “Can you make me coffee?”

“I already did, you oaf,” Weiss snaps, already pulling a mug of pale coffee toward her, “Can’t you just sit down and say good morning like a normal person?”

Yang looks away from Marrow’s loaded stare while she can and gets up to order French toast. 

[Later, much later, Yang will complain to Blake: “Apparently, I’m so in love with you it’s visible from _outer-fucking-space_.”]

-

5

-

It’s not really the first day off since they got to Atlas but it is the first day off in a while. Yang is tired and content to do just about anything. As long as Blake is there. Yang was kind of surprised when Blake suggested they tag along with team FNKI to a dance club. Normally giving Blake decision power over their day meant a bookstore, good food, maybe a tea shop and a nap. But Yang can’t complain, they haven’t been out dancing since Beacon. And the last time was slightly tarnished by being held at gunpoint the minute they walked into the club. Blake had been pissed.

[“What did you _do_?”

“Okay so, the last time I was here, I may have asked the owner some very reasonable questions.”

“You burned down the entire building!” Junior screeches across the room. 

“Yes, but, _technically_ that was self defense.”]

Yang knows she’s probably been staring too much from where she’s lounged on the bed watching Blake put her makeup on. Especially when Weiss basically gags at the thought of coming out with them. But she can’t help it. Yang heaves herself up to start getting ready. Dark jeans and a black button down with the sleeves rolled up plus the boots she bought once she got here. Nothing flashy for once. 

“How do I look?” She asks when she steps out of the bathroom and Blake stares at her. 

Blake steps in front of her and hums critically, fixes her collar where it’s half upright. “You’re not gonna do your make-up?”

“Nah,” Yang says, Blake’s barefoot and Yang has to tilt her chin down to look at her, “I was never very good at it but especially-” she wiggles her mech fingers. Blake’s eyes turn soft, all honeyed gold. Both her hands linger on Yang’s clavicles, the sides of her throat. Her hands are a little cold because Blake is always a little cold. 

“I’ll do it,” Blake announces. 

“You don’t have-.”

“I want to.” Blake pushes her back into the bathroom and bullies her up against the bathroom sink. Moving purposefully into her space. Yang lets her. Yang leans back against the sink, bracing her mech hand on the porcelain. Blake surges up on her toes and braces her arm on Yang’s shoulder. Yang’s other hand goes to Blake’s hip, a supportive and unconscious touch. 

“Okay, just don’t poke my eye out.” Yang tilts her face down into Blake’s hands. Blake cradles her jaw in one hand, gentle and firm at the same time, eyes already turning laser focused. “I’m only willing to have one pirate-like feature.”

Blake rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling when she does. Yang tries very hard to stay still. The harsh drag of the eyeliner pencil is at odds with Blake’s light touch. It gives Yang an excuse to observe her, the slight furrow of her brow in concentration, the flecks of earthy brown in the gold of her eyes, the pillowy curve of her bottom lip. Yang’s fingers twitch on Blake’ s hip. 

“What are you laughing at?” Blake demands; breathless and distracted. Yang wants to kiss her. Right there, in the washed out light of the bathroom, before they have even left. She doesn’t. If she kissed Blake every time the impulse struck her it would have happened a long time ago and a couple thousand times since. 

“You’re making the face. The-girl-putting-on-mascara face.”

“So? I am, technically, putting on mascara.”

“Yeah but you’re putting it on me, shouldn’t I be making that face?”

“You _should_ stop _laughing at me_ because it's making my job harder.”

Blake leans back for a second, to look at Yang as a whole, instead of just her eyelids. The curve of her lips is familiar to Yang. It’s a purely hypocritical, trying-not-to-laugh smile. The sort of smile that Yang is frequently responsible for. The sort of smile that makes it harder not duck her head down and taste it. Blake is squinting at her work, licking her thumb and smudging something by Yang’s eye, before shifting to her focus to Yang’s other side. Yang continues trying to hold still and not kiss her. If her hand shifts around Blake’s hip, if her fingers flex and tug her just a bit closer, Blake doesn’t stop her. 

Blake leans back to survey the final product, tilting Yang’s chin this way and that, humming her approval. Then she leans impossibly closer, letting their chests brush, as she reaches around Yang to put her makeup on the shelf above the sink. There practically isn’t any space left between them but what little there is, is full of static electricity, storm clouds, and the threat of thunder. All of Yang’s nerves are coiling and collecting somewhere between her heart and her stomach. Yang knows that Blake is too smart not to know exactly what she’s doing. Yang hopes it’s on purpose. Yang really wants it to be on purpose.

“Well?” Yang says, voice all gravel and frayed self control, “Do I pass inspection?”

Blake hums like she might be on the fence about it. Yang revels in being the sole focus of Blake’s attention. Blake’s hands smooth Yang’s collar down again, unnecessarily. She runs her palms over Yang’s clavicles again, across her sternum, holds there to brush her thumbs over the jut of Yang’s collar bone, the vulnerable skin of her throat. The soft weight of her hands makes Yang painfully aware of her own pulse, every molecule of oxygen in her lungs, every atom in the space between her and Blake. Yang thinks she’ll die if Blake keeps touching her. Yang thinks she’ll die if Blake stops. 

“You’ll do, I suppose,” Blake says, sly and playful. Yang has already left a number of shirt buttons undone but Blake reaches out and undoes one more. “There. Even better.”

The back of Yang’s neck burns along with her gut. Blake pats her cheek and slips away and out of the bathroom, smirking. It takes Yang a minute to find her voice again.

“What do you take me for, Belladonna? Making me out to be some lady of the night?”

“Can’t make you out to be something you already are.”

Yang stays leaning back against the sink, grinning wolfishly at nothing, “I can’t believe this, slutshamed by my own partner.”

“I think that was the opposite of slutshaming actually. I just slut-encouraged you.”

“Oh so now I’m meant to be picking someone up tonight?” Yang wants to bite back the joke as soon as she says it.

“Do you- Do you want to pick someone up tonight?” Blake’s voice has gone apprehensive and insecure on the other side of the wall. Yang winces to herself.

_Yes. You._

“Nah, gonna be too busy trying to teach you how to dance,” Yang sounds too sincere even to herself. “Most graceful person I know and yet no sense of rhythm,” Yang heaves an overly dramatic sigh, “It’s tragic really.”

Blake pokes her head back into the bathroom, glaring at Yang halfheartedly. “I was doing EXACTLY what you were doing.”

“Oh baby, you definitely weren’t.”

“Just- Just go wait in the lobby if you’re going to be insufferable.”

-

When Yang makes it to the lobby and sees Neon is the only other person there she almost turns on her heel and goes back to bothering Blake. But It’s hard to go unnoticed in the grand old arcade hallways of the Academy though; with the vaulted ceilings and the pillars and the echoey stone floors. Yang thinks it had almost been easier to deal with Neon when she was younger and could just lose her temper immediately. But now she has to ‘be the bigger person’ and show patience and restraint and all that other stupid shit. Especially since Neon hasn’t undergone any personal growth to make her less likely to push all of Yang’s buttons and purposefully rile her up. 

Neon’s outfit is bright enough to be painful to look at and Yang isn’t motivated enough to try. There is a very civil greeting on Yang’s part followed by a loud overly flirtatious one on Neon’s, then some small talk about transportation and who they’re waiting on. Then something seems to spark up in Neon and she sidles closer to Yang. Neon knows exactly what she’s doing. Tracing her fingers down the soft underside of Yang’s arm, over the veins and the long fingers. When Neon looks up, Yang is unimpressed, watching her with a bland detached expression. “I’m not buying you a drink Neon.”

“Right because all your drinks are spoken for,” Neon winks, “It’s a shame really.” she pouts squeezing Yang’s bicep. Yang remains bored while hedging toward being annoyed. 

“Oh well,” Neon says, her eyes flick toward someone over Yang’s shoulder, “I got what I came for.” She flounces away, blowing Yang a kiss over her shoulder as she goes. Yang rolls her eyes. 

Yang can feel the weight of Blake’s presence like a physical touch. A simple dark purple dress shouldn’t punch all the air out of Yang’s lungs but it does. The asymmetrical hem shows a generous amount of thigh and the neckline dips lower than anything else Yang’s seen Blake wear. Worse yet, the spaghetti straps of the dress are hidden under Yang’s bomber jacket. It’s big on Blake in a way that makes it clear it belongs to someone else; the shoulders too wide, the sleeves a little too long. When Yang drags her eyes up to Blake’s face she almost laughs. Because Blake looks… _pissed_ , eyes narrowed and ears tilted back, and it’s completely at odds with how stunning she looks. 

When Blake turns her attention to Yang and catches her eye, she fidgets, one ear flicking forward, a flush spreading high on her cheeks. Yang opens and closes her mouth a few times, knowing she should say something but having completely lost her grip on the mechanics involved. 

“How do I look?” Blake asks, parroting Yang’s own words back to her.

“Gre-at,” Yang’s voice cracks over the word, “You look great.”

“We’re leaving without you!” Neon sings across the foyer.

Blake’s expression sours again and she tugs on Yang’s elbow, “C’mon.”

Yang lets herself be pulled. She doesn’t bother to look where they’re going, doesn’t particularly care. “I like the jacket, by the way.”

Some of the grumpiness lifts from Blake’s expression and she shoves her a bit without letting go of her arm, “I thought you might.”

-

The club is loud and full of people, which Blake really should have expected. But she still cringes a bit at the overbearing bass-heavy music and the crush of bodies all around them. They’ve already lost everyone else they came here with. Yang looks unaffected, taking up space in a deliberate way and sweeping her eyes across the room. The crowd doesn’t touch her. Blake shifts closer to her, in an attempt to take shelter in her space. Yang must catch on because her fingers drift along the small of Blake’s back. She looks down at Blake with her head tipped in a question. 

Blake twists up on her toes to try and speak against Yang’s ear over the music. “Should have gone to the bookstore.”

Yang lets out a bark of laughter but the sound is swallowed by the music. Yang tips down to speak against Blake’s temple, “It’s not too late.”

When Yang pulls back her eyes are shining, amused and sincere. For a second, Blake almost believes that Yang would do anything for her. 

Blake shakes her head. She smiles, tugs Yang down, “You said you would teach me how to dance.”

Yang’s slow smile is frozen in the flash of a strobe light for half a second before her fingers find Blake’s hand. True to her word Yang does try to teach her how to dance. Which means they end up laughing more than they end up dancing. And Blake can’t be too disappointed at being bad at something when it gives Yang an excuse to keep her hands on Blake’s hips. 

-

After a while they take a break. There is a secluded area, off to the side, that is quiet enough that they don’t have to shout to talk with wide leather couches and arm chairs. Yang gets them both a drink. 

Yang flings herself into one of the big leather armchairs, splashing drink down her hand.

“I was jealous.”

“Hm?” Yang is dragging her tongue over her knuckles to clean them.

“Earlier,” Blake hesitates, fidgets, can’t bear to look at Yang while she admits this. “When I saw Neon. I was jealous.”

A disbelieving laugh bubbles out of Yang involuntarily, “You have _no one_ to be jealous of, _especially_ when you look like that.”

Blake’s heart stutters and she jostles the ice in her glass anxiously. “What do you mean?”

“Blake,” Yang says, like her name alone is a confession. “When you’re in the room... I can’t even see anyone else. Even when you’re not, there’s no one else.”

Yang says it like it’s something cosmically inevitable. Like she’s explaining a near factual phenomena from a physics textbook about gravity or polarity or the phases of the moon. “For me. There’s no one else.”

“Yang, I-.” Blake’s expression is unreadable; ears tilted in separate directions. Yang tries to look cool and calm sprawled in her arm chair rather than terrified. She feels clumsy. Heart racing and trying not to think she’s made a horrible, irreversible mistake. She just wants to know if she read it all wrong, if she’s ruined one of the few good things she’s ever had by saying it out loud. Because she would have been fine with everything they had before. It would have been less than what she wanted but it still would have been enough. 

Blake drops her drink onto the side table. It makes the sharp and heavy glass on glass sound that makes Yang flinch. In one swift motion, Blake presses her knees into the armchair cushion, straddling Yang’s thighs. Yang’s throat goes dry and her chest twists with a dangerous sort of hope. Blake plucks Yang’s glass out of her loose fingers and puts it next to hers. Yang notices the way Blake’s hands shake. One of Yang’s hands finds her side, just beneath her ribs, hot as a brand. Sitting in Yang’s lap makes Blake the taller one and she kind of likes it. 

“Blake- mmf.”

The first kiss is simple, chaste. Her mouth pressed against Yang’s and Yang’s pressing back. Her hands framing Yang’s face, her fingers curled around her jaw. Yang’s jeans against the inside of her thighs. Yang’s fingers fanning out at the curve of her waist. Somewhere, music is playing but it's far away somehow. There’s nothing cosmic about it. No fireworks. No electricity. But it still leaves Blake giddy, heart pounding, and half drunk. Because it is a precipice that Blake is looking down and, for once, Blake isn’t afraid of heights. Not anymore. But she can still feel the vertigo. When Blake pulls back, her hands are trembling in time with the staccato pulse at the hollow of Yang’s throat. When Blake pulls back, she doesn’t get far, doesn’t even get to open her eyes before Yang is cradling the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her hairline, and pulling her back for a second kiss. 

The second kiss is different. Slower. Fuller. Yang shifts the angle and parts her lips just a little. There’s movement and friction and Blake remembering how to give it back. Blake’s heart is fast and heavy in her chest but time has gone syrup-sticky-slow all around them. Blake has to steady herself with a hand on Yang’s shoulder, shifting until her knees hit the back of the arm chair as she slots herself further into Yang’s lap. Yang makes the slightest whimper in the back of her throat when she does and Blake swallows it and it sparks low in her belly. Yang swipes her tongue against Blake’s bottom lip and Blake can’t think about anything except that she wants her to do it again. It’s both too much and not enough. It’s so overwhelming that Blake thinks it should hurt, but it doesn't. It doesn't. Because it’s Yang. 

The third and fourth and fifth kiss all dissolve together, until there really isn’t much point in counting anymore. 

It takes an obnoxious announcement from the DJ, somehow louder than the music, for Blake to remember where they are. Blake tries to pull back but Yang follows her and it makes her laugh into the next kiss. Blake gets lost in indulging her for a few minutes; forgets why she pulled away in the first place. But as soon as she pushes at Yang’s shoulders, Yang stops abruptly.

She looks dazed and starry eyed, “Whas’ the matter?”

Blake is fighting a smile and gives up, pushes their foreheads together, sighs against Yang’s mouth. “You’re going to spoil me.”

“Oh, you have no idea.” 

“I won’t complain, but,” Blake lets out a sharp gasp as Yang’s mouth moves along the underside of Blake’s jaw and down her throat, “We shouldn’t do this here.”

“Mmhmm.” Yang agrees but doesn’t change course. Yang’s fingers skim along the hem of Blake’s dress, brushing underneath it and then retreating, repeatedly. It’s not helping Blake focus. Yang’s fingers skim down to her knees and then back up to her hem line, under her hem line, feather light and teasing. It’s really not helping her focus. In fact, it’s driving her insane.

“Yang. If you _really,_ ” Blake grinds down into Yang’s lap, against her jeans, and makes her own breath hitch, “want to spoil me? Take me home. Right now.”

Yang makes a strangled noise. Her touch goes from teasing to firm. “Yep! Okay, yep, I can do that! I can definitely do that, yes ma’am!”

Blake laughs at her flustered floundering, before chucking her chin up with a knuckle to kiss her again, like a hypocrite. Midway through the kiss, Yang stands up, hitching Blake’s thighs up around her waist. Blake lets out a squeaky yelp and tightens her grip around Yang’s shoulders. Yang just laughs against her throat and carries her out of the club. 

Outside, Yang presses Blake flush against the bricks while they wait for an airship to take them back to the Academy. It should be too cold to do this but the way Yang has her pinned against the wall so that every inhale, every exhale, every shiver, is felt against her whole body, makes it impossible for Blake to feel the chill. Every point of contact with Yang leaves her so warm she doesn’t remember what cold even feels like. 

Yang is dragging open mouthed kisses down Blake’s neck when the sirens go off.

Yang groans theatrically in frustration. Yang slumps into Blake and buries her face in her shoulder. “Let’s call in sick.”

“You know we can’t do that.” Blake sighs, trailing her fingers up the back of Yang’s neck, to tangle in her hairline. 

Yang heaves a sigh in return and Blake feels it wash across her skin. “Yeah I know we can’t.” Yang still doesn’t move. 

“You can still take me home,” Blake says, nudging Yang out of her hiding place. Yang presses their foreheads together instead. “ _After_ we save the world.”

“That’s true. I do know where you live,” Yang’s eyebrows jog up and down, and Blake can feel it against her forehead, “and sleep.”

“You’re awful,” Blake says, smiling. Blake kisses her again, simple and sweet like the first kiss, like _hello_ , or _I’ve missed you_ or _welcome home_. 

-

**Author's Note:**

> listen. just roll with the timeline discrepancies. 
> 
> title is from the poem Your Love Finds It's Way Back by Sierra DeMulder.
> 
> been meaning to get this out of the WIP folder for a while, figured I better get it on here before volume 8 wrecks my shit. 
> 
> the plus one for this 5+1 will be separate chapter, coming soon...
> 
> shout out to toomanyboys for betaing this even though she doesnt go here


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